When did that happen, what was the actual date, because no one has known where you’ve been for a long time?

The final straw was the December to Dismember Pay Per View. That show was just a wreck.

I knew it going in. I kept trying to pitch different things for the show that week, that weekend, and even the day of the show. All day long on the day of the show, I kept coming to Vince saying: “The people are going to throw this back in our face.”

Can you give us some examples of the things that you wanted to do that Vince said “no” to?

I thought the undercard was horrible.

I thought that the design of the show itself made no sense.

I just felt that the entire layout of the show, the entire complexion of the event was a downer.

I also thought that we were doing Bobby Lashley no favours the way he was going to win the title. Lashley winning the title, especially if you eliminate Rob Van Dam and CM Punk early, would be leapfrogging over RVD and Punk.

Van Dam was the sentimental favourite, Punk was the kid that all the crowd was getting behind and they wanted to see the upset.

If you don’t appease the need for the audience to see that new hero get crowned like Punk did the week before at Survivor Series when DX let him say ‘Are you ready?’ then the audience will feel ripped off.

If you don’t put that spotlight on Van Dam, with whom the paying customers have just taken this long ride back into the title chase, then the paying customer will feel ripped off.

My opinion was to start the chamber off with the Big Show saying: “I’m a seven foot tall, 500lb giant, I’m gonna mow through every one of you.”

And the first to take him on would be Punk. Playing to the fact that UFC is so hot and in the public consciousness, Punk chokes out Big Show in the first round of the Elimination Chamber, four-and-a-half minutes in, and now the champion is out.

You know for a fact, before any two contenders lock up, I’m getting a new champion at the end of this match.

Then, the first guy to come out after Big Show v Punk, would be Van Dam. You let Van Dam and Punk fight it out, and then you start feeding in the heels.

Vince hated this. He especially hated the fact that Big Show liked it.

Even though he was being choked out within five minutes, Big Show liked it?

Of course, because he was making a new guy!

Big Show is so underappreciated in terms of how smart he is to the business, and how willing he is to make new stars.

Vince wanted all babyfaces out of the way and for all the spotlight on Lashley and for Lashley to do a Goldberg-style two minute squash of The Big Show.

At that point, not only did I realise that this is going to suck, not only is everyone going to throw this back at us, but this show is going to run short.

And during the show, I pointed all this out to Vince, which just angered him even more, and he didn’t care.

His attitude was: “When this broadcast is over, people will see a new champion, they’ll have a new hero and they’ll all be happy.”

When I went to Vince right before I went out to introduce the Chamber, I pointed out again to him “Vince this show is horribly short.”

I had this idea of getting 15 minutes out of the crowd, but Vince said: “No, no, no. Just go out there, make your point, and introduce the Chamber.”

Which is why, when I was in the ring, I made the statement: “ECW will live long after I am gone.”

Because I knew, either when I went back into the dressing room, or within the next day or two, it was time for me to leave.

Heyman's version seemed fantastic, imagine how hot that crowd would've been to see show out FIRST and then the 2 faces face off. Damn, that would've been great. It's a shame Heyman isn't booking someplace, he's really a damn good booker. Vince McMahon has awful ideas.

i guess vince is likes those goldberg type wrestlers that just squash people.
that heyman sounded cool. i ish heyman was more responisble with his money and well orgainized so that there wold still be an ecw. who knows what kind of wrestler would be hot now. rhino was ecw final great ecw hardcore legend. i miss ecw on tnn

Heyman's version seemed fantastic, imagine how hot that crowd would've been to see show out FIRST and then the 2 faces face off. Damn, that would've been great. It's a shame Heyman isn't booking someplace, he's really a damn good booker. Vince McMahon has awful ideas.

Damn i would of liked to see his version!

December to Dismember was one of the worst ppv's EVER, if Vince just let Heyman do his thing it could of been great.

i guess vince is likes those goldberg type wrestlers that just squash people.
that heyman sounded cool. i ish heyman was more responisble with his money and well orgainized so that there wold still be an ecw. who knows what kind of wrestler would be hot now. rhino was ecw final great ecw hardcore legend. i miss ecw on tnn

Big Show is so underappreciated in terms of how smart he is to the business, and how willing he is to make new stars.

few people are willing to do that. that was a big knock on most of the wcw stars back in the day how the young people never got a chance do to the fact the vets were not willing to lose it is the same with people like hhh

to be fair in wcw, jericho was the only legitimate guy held back... eddie = drug, alcohol addict, mysterio = far too small (was less than 200 lbs), benoit = not charismatic enough at the time...

the guys who missed out during the hogan era were proven champions like sting, flair and savage...

as for the wwe now, they (like wcw) see the value in proven commodities... the undertaker, shawn michaels and triple h are still better now than most of the rest of the roster will ever be... edge could now consider himself on this level, jericho should return to it in time and the sky's the limit for orton...

even guys like batista, cena, mysterio, etc aren't at this level... this was the level big show was at... you can afford to have him lose, because he isn't the go-to when things are going bad...

To me, Jericho wasn't held back in WCW, only when it came to the World Title.. and during Jericho's hay days.. you had Hogan..Sting..Roddy Piper..DDP..shit man.. all those old bums using their political power to hold the World Title or be in the main event picture.

Jericho to me shined on Nitro and the staff still let him do his thing. He used to rock the mic crazy style in WCW and when he'd have the Cruiserweight Title he had some GREAT matches...and then as TV Champ he was even more wild. Jericho was the man in WCW, they stole him from ECW after seeing his amazing talent and then put him to work on the mic and bam.. The Ayatollah was born..

I agree that there were wrestlers held back during WCW's heyday. On the other hand, I think that was one of the most entertaining periods of wrestling that I've seen(NWO). It was the most popular time in wrestling history.

By the way, why does a wrestler have to be a certain height or weight, to get pushed? Mysterio is one of the most popular wrestlers in the WWE. And the cruiserweight division in WCW put on some exciting matches. Vince doesn't care about a cruiserweight division though. I think it's pretty stupid how Vince pushes a wrestler just because he's a heavyweight, even though he might not have much wrestling or mic talent. An example would be somebody such as Chris Masters.

On a last note, how did Sting miss out during the Hogan era? He was world champion. He was a main part in a lot of the big storylines and matches, and he was made to look almost immortal.

Hulk Hogan and Eric Bischoff are about to launch a new wrestling promotion designed to compete against World Wrestling Entertainment, according to comments made by Hogan to the UK Sun.

Hogan told the British newspaper, "Last night me and Eric were getting ready to sign a deal with one of the TV networks here in America. We had a little bit of a problem with the licensing and merchandising, which has delayed it. But I totally expect we're going to sign the TV portion of this very soon, because there's no point in starting any sort of wrestling organization without the TV locked in place. Now we're just arguing among the lawyers on how to protect the brand and the image and make sure it's a fair deal for everybody. Once we've wrapped the TV up we'll make the official announcement. The network want to make a real big deal out of it."

Hogan didn't specify which network they are working with. In regard to talent, Hogan claimed there was a generation of wrestlers out there that Vince McMahon has yet to explore. Hogan also said there are a lot of unhappy individuals in WWE.

Hogan faces a huge hurdle in building his own wrestling federation - most of America's top wrestlers are already under contract to WWE, TNA, and ROH.

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I dont see how their going to compete with WWE, TNA aint even at that level yet.

I agree that there were wrestlers held back during WCW's heyday. On the other hand, I think that was one of the most entertaining periods of wrestling that I've seen(NWO). It was the most popular time in wrestling history.

By the way, why does a wrestler have to be a certain height or weight, to get pushed? Mysterio is one of the most popular wrestlers in the WWE. And the cruiserweight division in WCW put on some exciting matches. Vince doesn't care about a cruiserweight division though. I think it's pretty stupid how Vince pushes a wrestler just because he's a heavyweight, even though he might not have much wrestling or mic talent. An example would be somebody such as Chris Masters.

On a last note, how did Sting miss out during the Hogan era? He was world champion. He was a main part in a lot of the big storylines and matches, and he was made to look almost immortal.

i understand rey is popular and good at what he does... but let's face it... in the storylines in wcw he was being physically dominated by the bigger cruiserweights like malenko and jericho... how could you legitimately put the world title on him when there were guys the size of nash and the giant running around?

he had to bulk up significantly to get the world strap around his waist in the wwe and even then i didn't buy it... there's a suspension of belief and then there's rey mysterio pinning the undertaker... get what i mean?

as for sting... after all that build up... hogan refused to do the job cleanly which led to the flubbed ending at starrcade or whatever ppv it was... the guy was a proven champion and very good wrestler was made to look weak by hogan for basically the whole match (despite the build up, he was pretty much dominated for no good reason) until the ending which hogan insisted on having... to fair to hulk, nick patrick ruined the count and the finish, but the match itself took a lot of momentum out of the sting character...